{"site":{"name":"Koji","description":"AI-native customer research platform that helps teams conduct, analyze, and synthesize customer interviews at scale.","url":"https://www.koji.so","contentTypes":["blog","documentation"],"lastUpdated":"2026-10-15T20:07:59.723Z"},"content":[{"type":"blog","id":"a18f5017-5cd1-40e9-a8cc-2cac1c89f26a","slug":"usertesting-vs-lyssna-2026","title":"UserTesting vs Lyssna (2026): Which Testing Platform Fits Your Team?","url":"https://www.koji.so/blog/usertesting-vs-lyssna-2026","summary":"UserTesting and Lyssna solve different problems. UserTesting records people using a product, unmoderated or live, sells a per-session option at $149 with a 10-session minimum and larger plans by quote, and offers AI insight summaries for unmoderated tests. Lyssna, formerly UsabilityHub, runs quick design tests (five-second, first-click, preference, prototype, card sorting, tree testing, surveys) plus scheduled interviews, with a free plan, a Growth plan at $165 a month billed annually, and a 690,000+ person panel billed per minute. Choose UserTesting for video evidence and live sessions, Lyssna for fast, cheap design validation. Neither asks follow-up questions at scale without a moderator; Koji adds AI-moderated voice and text interviews that probe every answer, from 1 credit per qualified interview with 10 free credits to start.","content":"# UserTesting vs Lyssna (2026): Which Testing Platform Fits Your Team?\n\n**Short answer:** Choose **UserTesting** if you need video of real people using your product, live sessions, and an enterprise platform that a large team can share. Choose **Lyssna** if you mostly run quick design tests (five-second tests, first-click tests, preference tests, card sorts) and want transparent pricing with a free plan. Both show you *what* people do. If your open question is *why* customers choose, hesitate or leave, add AI-moderated interviews from [Koji](https://www.koji.so), which ask follow-up questions in every conversation and start free.\n\nThis comparison covers what each platform does, how they charge, where each one falls short, and how to pick.\n\n---\n\n## Why this choice matters in 2026\n\nResearch teams are being asked to do more with the same people. Maze's 2025 Future of User Research report found that **55% of respondents saw demand for research rise**, while **63% named time and bandwidth as their top challenge**. In the 2026 State of User Research report from User Interviews and UserTesting, **21% of respondents reported researcher layoffs in 2025**, and **80% now use AI in their work, up 24 points in a year**.\n\nThat pressure explains why UserTesting and Lyssna end up on the same shortlist. One promises depth from watching real people. The other promises speed from quick tests anyone on the team can launch. The right answer depends on which constraint hurts more.\n\n---\n\n## UserTesting vs Lyssna at a glance\n\n| | UserTesting | Lyssna | Koji |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| Core method | Video of people using your product, unmoderated or live | Quick design tests and surveys, plus scheduled interviews | AI-moderated voice and text interviews |\n| Best for | Watching real behaviour on sites, apps and prototypes | Fast checks on designs, copy and navigation | Learning why customers decide, at scale |\n| Participants | Large contributor network | Panel of 690,000+ people | Your own users, or a panel quote per respondent |\n| Follow-up questions | Only in live sessions with a moderator | Only in live sessions with a moderator | AI asks follow-ups in every interview |\n| AI analysis | AI insight summary for unmoderated tests | AI summaries on the paid plan | Themes, findings and quotes in an automatic report |\n| Try it free | Paid per session or by contract | Free plan | 10 free credits, no card |\n\n![Table comparing UserTesting, Lyssna and Koji on core method, best use, participants, follow-up questions, AI analysis and free access.](/visuals/usertesting-vs-lyssna-vs-koji-comparison-table/usertesting-vs-lyssna-vs-koji-comparison-table.png \"Each tool answers a different research question. Pick by the question.\")\n\n---\n\n## What UserTesting does well\n\nUserTesting is the long-standing name in video-based user research. You write tasks, people from its contributor network complete them on camera while thinking aloud, and you watch the recordings.\n\n- **Video of real behaviour.** Seeing someone hesitate on a checkout page is hard to argue with in a stakeholder meeting.\n- **Unmoderated and live.** Run self-guided tests at volume, or run live conversations with a moderator.\n- **AI insight summaries.** UserTesting's help centre says its AI insight summary analyses video, transcript and behaviour data for unmoderated tests with up to 25 contributors.\n- **Enterprise features.** Team management, security reviews, and in July 2026 an MCP server that connects recruitment, test creation and results to AI assistants.\n\n**Pricing.** UserTesting's plans page lists a per-session option you can buy online, priced at **$149 per session with a 10-session minimum** at the time of writing, with access lasting 30 days. Its larger plans are sold by quote, and third-party guides put annual contracts in the tens of thousands of dollars. Check the plans page for current terms.\n\n**Where it falls short.** Unmoderated video tells you what happened, but a task-based test cannot ask a second question when someone says something surprising. Live sessions can, but each one needs a moderator's time, which limits volume.\n\n---\n\n## What Lyssna does well\n\nLyssna, formerly UsabilityHub, is built for speed. Most tests take minutes to set up and minutes to complete.\n\n- **A wide set of quick methods.** Five-second tests, first-click tests, preference tests, prototype tests, card sorting, tree testing and surveys.\n- **Interviews too.** Lyssna's help centre describes an Interviews feature for scheduling and managing moderated sessions with your own audience or its panel, with recording and transcription.\n- **A large panel.** Lyssna says its panel has more than 690,000 participants.\n- **Transparent pricing.** A free plan with three seats, and a Growth plan at **$165 a month billed annually or $199 billed monthly**, with five seats and five in-depth studies a month. Panel responses are pay as you go, at about 1 credit per minute of test length per participant.\n\n**Where it falls short.** Lyssna's quick tests are best at narrow questions: which design wins, where people click first. They are not built for open-ended discovery, and moderated interviews still need a person to run each one.\n\n---\n\n## Head to head\n\n**For design validation, Lyssna wins.** It is faster to set up, cheaper to run and simpler for designers to use without a researcher in the loop.\n\n**For watching real product use, UserTesting wins.** Video of a person working through a task, narrating as they go, carries more weight than a click map.\n\n**For budget, Lyssna wins clearly.** You can start free and see the price of a study before you launch it. UserTesting's per-session option helps smaller teams, but at $149 a session, 20 sessions cost about $2,980.\n\n**For the reasons behind behaviour, neither is built for scale.** Both rely on a human moderator to ask follow-up questions. That is the gap most teams feel after a few rounds of testing: they know where people struggle, not why they chose a competitor or stopped using a feature.\n\n---\n\n## When to choose UserTesting\n\nPick UserTesting if:\n\n![A person working through a task on a laptop and talking it through, as in a recorded usability session](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1572610304424-34b7b2b46540?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3w5NDUzMDN8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHw2fHxwZXJzb24lMjB1c2luZyUyMGxhcHRvcCUyMHRoaW5raW5nJTIwYWxvdWR8ZW58MXwwfHx8MTc5MjA0MzQxMnww&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080)\n\n_Photo by [Jonas Leupe](https://unsplash.com/@jonasleupe?utm_source=koji&utm_medium=referral) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=koji&utm_medium=referral)_\n\n- You need video evidence of real people using your site, app or prototype.\n- You run live sessions and want recruitment, scheduling and recording in one place.\n- Your company already buys enterprise software through procurement, and several teams will share the platform.\n\n## When to choose Lyssna\n\nPick Lyssna if:\n\n- Your team mostly tests designs, copy and navigation.\n- Designers and product managers will run tests themselves.\n- You want published prices, a free plan and panel costs you can see before launch.\n\n---\n\n## Where Koji fits: the interview layer neither covers\n\nUserTesting and Lyssna show you behaviour. [Koji](https://www.koji.so) is built to explain it. An AI interviewer talks with each participant by voice or text, follows up on vague answers, and turns every conversation into themes, findings and quotes without anyone moderating.\n\n![Koji voice interview in progress with an AI orb asking a follow-up question and a microphone button](/email/shots/shot-voice-interview.jpg \"The AI interviewer asks a follow-up after each answer, in every interview.\")\n\n- **Follow-up questions at scale.** Every interview probes the answer, so 50 conversations get the depth of 50 moderated sessions. See [how AI-moderated interviews work](/docs/ai-moderated-interviews) and [voice vs text interviews](/docs/voice-vs-text-interviews).\n- **Numbers and reasons together.** Six question types in one study (open ended, scale, single choice, multiple choice, ranking and yes/no), so a rating and the reason for it come from the same person.\n- **Reports without the synthesis week.** [Thematic analysis](/docs/thematic-analysis-guide) and findings backed by participant quotes, built as interviews arrive.\n- **Simple pricing.** A qualified text interview uses 1 credit and a voice interview uses 3, at €1 per credit, and only interviews scoring 3 or more on [quality](/docs/understanding-quality-scores) are billed. Start with 10 free credits and no card, then buy credits as you go or choose a plan from €29 a month.\n- **Your participants or ours.** Share a link with your users, send [personal invite links](/docs/importing-participants-csv), or on a paid plan use [panel recruitment](/docs/panel-recruitment) with the per-respondent quote shown before launch.\n\nMany teams use Koji next to a testing tool: Lyssna or UserTesting to find where people struggle, then Koji to ask a larger group why. Koji does not record screens or run click tests, so it does not replace them for that job. For a deeper look, read [Koji vs UserTesting](/blog/koji-vs-usertesting-2026) and [Koji vs Lyssna](/blog/koji-vs-lyssna-2026).\n\n---\n\n## Find out why, not only where\n\nIf your last round of tests showed where people get stuck, the next question is why. Write that question into Koji, preview the interview for free, and send it to your users today. You will have transcripts, themes and a report by tomorrow.\n\n[Start free with Koji](https://www.koji.so). 10 credits, no card needed.\n\n---\n\n*Sources: UserTesting plans page, help centre and July 2026 product release notes; Lyssna pricing, feature and help centre pages; User Interviews and UserTesting, State of User Research 2026; Maze, Future of User Research Report 2025. Prices as listed by each vendor in October 2026.*\n","category":"Comparisons","lastModified":"2026-10-15T06:20:13.301783+00:00","metaTitle":"UserTesting vs Lyssna (2026): Features, Pricing, Verdict","metaDescription":"UserTesting vs Lyssna compared: video testing vs quick design tests, panels, AI features and pricing ($149 a session vs a free plan). Plus how to learn why users act.","keywords":["usertesting vs lyssna","lyssna vs usertesting","usertesting or lyssna","lyssna pricing","usertesting pricing","usability testing tools 2026"],"aiSummary":"UserTesting and Lyssna solve different problems. UserTesting records people using a product, unmoderated or live, sells a per-session option at $149 with a 10-session minimum and larger plans by quote, and offers AI insight summaries for unmoderated tests. Lyssna, formerly UsabilityHub, runs quick design tests (five-second, first-click, preference, prototype, card sorting, tree testing, surveys) plus scheduled interviews, with a free plan, a Growth plan at $165 a month billed annually, and a 690,000+ person panel billed per minute. Choose UserTesting for video evidence and live sessions, Lyssna for fast, cheap design validation. Neither asks follow-up questions at scale without a moderator; Koji adds AI-moderated voice and text interviews that probe every answer, from 1 credit per qualified interview with 10 free credits to start.","aiKeywords":["usertesting","lyssna","usability testing","unmoderated testing","design testing","ai moderated interviews","koji"],"aiContentType":"comparison","faqItems":[{"answer":"Yes, for most teams. Lyssna has a free plan and a Growth plan at $165 a month billed annually, with panel responses paid per minute of test length. UserTesting sells sessions at $149 each with a 10-session minimum, and its larger plans are quoted, with third-party guides putting annual contracts in the tens of thousands of dollars.","question":"Is Lyssna cheaper than UserTesting?"},{"answer":"For quick design tests such as five-second, first-click, preference and card sorting tests, yes. For video of people working through tasks on your live product, UserTesting is stronger. Many teams use Lyssna for design checks and keep another tool for behaviour video.","question":"Can Lyssna replace UserTesting?"},{"answer":"Yes. Lyssna's Interviews feature lets you schedule and manage moderated sessions with your own audience or its panel, with recording and transcription. A person still runs each session.","question":"Does Lyssna do moderated interviews?"},{"answer":"Lyssna says its panel has more than 690,000 participants and bills panel responses per minute of test length. UserTesting has a large contributor network, though it does not publish a current figure.","question":"Which has the bigger participant panel?"},{"answer":"Usability tests show where people struggle. To learn why at scale, use AI-moderated interviews. Koji's AI interviewer asks follow-up questions in every voice or text interview and builds a report of themes and quotes. A qualified text interview uses 1 credit and voice 3, at €1 per credit, with 10 free credits to start.","question":"How do I find out why users behave the way they do at scale?"}],"relatedTopics":["UserTesting","Lyssna","usability testing tools","UX research tools","AI moderated interviews"]}],"pagination":{"total":1,"returned":1,"offset":0}}